Son of the Mourning- 100k!

I just wanted to give a quick update on my current WIP, Son of the Mourning (you can track my progress here), the sequel to the Dawn of the Lightbearer. On Friday, after some tough going in my day job, and some torture days of not writing, I finally passed the 100k mark! If you’ve been following me, you’ll know that I consider this point a significant milestone. Yay!

When I first started writing, I had no idea how long a book should be. In my research, I read that publishers liked offerings from new authors to be around 100k words, and this became my goal. My first three novels held this as a strict standard. The first time I reached it (some 15 years ago while living in China), I was ecstatic. I then panicked because my story wasn’t complete, and so, I cut to fit- a lot. It created a monstrosity with a bad ending that lies in a drawer someplace. It also impacted first drafts of later books like Island of Stone and the Slaying of the Bull, but I have since rewrote both to fit with the story and not a arbitrary word count- live and learn. But still, to me, once you cross 100k, you know for sure you’ve got a book on the way and it starts to get real! As an epic fantasy, I think Son of the Mourning will be close to 150k, so I still have some work to do, but it’s coming soon. I already have a sense of where the third book in the Absolution of the Morning Star series will go. It will be titled Noonday in the North and I already have a draft cover.

Son of the Mourning has taken me exactly twice as long to reach 100k as the Dawn of the Lightbearer, but the pace I’ve set for myself (1,000 words a day) is so much less stressful and doable during the academic year. When I was doing 2k a day over the summer, it was a stretch. I like how it kept me immersed in the story, but squeezing that in at night after full-time work, was challenging- even during my “slow” time. Hopefully, work will start to ease, and I can focus more time on getting this book done. I’ve set a goal to have it out for the holiday season, and with the leaves beginning to change here in the Boston area, I better get moving. Snow will be here before I know it and it will be great inspiration for writing the wintry wilderness setting of Noonday in the North.

Cheers!